Stir (The Sizzle TV Series Book 5)

Chapter 33 – Nic

Aknock sounds on the door. Looking up from my temporary desk at Legal Aid, I see Reggie and his younger siblings hovering in the hall just behind him.

“Hey, guys. Come on in.” I wave them over, pointing at the seats in front of the desk. The office is tiny, but it’s not the first time we’ve made this work.

They file into the room, but Reggie shakes his head at the chairs.

“We’re on our way back to the ’burbs,” he says, wrapping an arm around his little brother’s shoulders. Jason is the youngest of the three and has always been shy around me. Kid’s got good reason to be. I can’t imagine having my life upended like theirs has been.

“What can I do for you?” I close the computer in front of me. It’s just about the end of my day anyway.

“We wanted to say thank you,” says Jenny quietly.

I blink up at them.

“Since Mom and Dad—” Reggie clears his throat. “Since the accident, nothing has gone the way it was supposed to. Everything sucked.”

“Obviously,” says Jenny. Reggie makes a face at her.

“I mean, more than it had to. Everything was more complicated, and nothing went the right way the first time,” he explains. I know what he’s talking about. Guardianship had been an issue, and if you’re a kid, even a mostly grown kid like Reggie, where you live affects every other facet of your life. They’d been in a constant state of upheaval for months until we got them settled.

“But you helped,” says Jason, speaking for the first time.

“I’m glad I could,” I tell him honestly. I smile at him.

“We just wanted to say thank you ourselves,” says Jenny, sounding far more mature than her fourteen years. “For everything you did to help.”

Reggie shakes my hand. When Jason stretches up to his full twelve-year-old height to do the same, my throat gets tight.

They don’t linger after that, but they leave a mark. Finn had told me all those weeks ago that his own family might not have suffered so much if they’d had someone like me to go to bat for them. If I can spare Reggie and Jenny and Jason the same kind of hardship… there aren’t many reasons I’d volunteer my free time. This is definitely one of them.

“Sounds like a job well done,” says a voice from the door.

“Hey, Frederick.”

He props his shoulder on the doorframe, tilting his head in the direction Reggie Young and his siblings just went.

“Case closed?”

“Yep. They just came in to say goodbye.”

He smirks. “Liar. They came by to thank you.”

“Eavesdropping can get you arrested around here.”

“Oh, please.” He cocks his head. “Have you thought about fostering?”

For the second time in ten minutes, I stand there, blinking like an idiot.

“Fostering what?” It takes me an embarrassing amount of time to work it out. “You mean children?”

“Yes, children. You’d almost certainly qualify. And there’s no shortage of kids who need a safe place to land.”

I couldn’t. “Kids aren’t really on the radar right now.”

He shrugs. “Shame.”

That makes me pause. “What makes you say that?”

“You’re good with them,” he says. “Empathetic. You didn’t coddle the Young siblings, and they’ve probably not talked to a single adult in the last six months who didn’t try to handle them with kid gloves.”

“Their parents died.”

He gives me a flat look. “I’m aware. But it’s a sign of respect, and they know it. You helped them handle business without treating them like children. You treated them like people.”

“How the hell else are you supposed to treat them?”

Frederick points at me. “That’s what I’m talking about. You didn’t even think about it.”

I can’t foster kids. I’ve only just gotten Finn and Natalie to talk about house shopping. Not to mention, how do you even talk about having kids with three parents? There’s no way.

Is there?

Frederick straightens up, the start of a smirk on his face. “I’ll let you get back to it. And Nic?”

“Yeah?” My mind is a million miles away.

“Good to have you back.”

The idea is ridiculous.

Never mind, I’m a generally stable, productive member of society; look at my family. My father’s a notorious cheater who takes advantage of his female employees and subordinates. My mother’s just accepted that fact in silence for years—although apparently times are changing. She seems to be sticking to her guns this time. Dad’s out on his ear and apparently isn’t taking the separation too well.

And then there’s Barry, whose gambling problem started back in college and only got worse from there. Turns out he gambled away everything he could get his hands on and more besides. He’d gotten a quarter million out of Dad alone by feeding him a story about some new investment strategy, which was a fancy way of saying back-room poker. That was how he found out I was bisexual. He’d gone through my old things at Mom’s house a couple years back, trying to find stuff to sell or pawn or maybe loose cash. Instead, he found notes from an old boyfriend. Notes that were… creative. And specific.

Barry had held on to that trump card until he thought for sure he’d get the most out of it. I didn’t pay him off, but our dad wasn’t the only one he got money from. Barry owed a lot of people a scary amount of money. Break-your-fingers-and-shoot-your-kneecaps kind of money.

Mom said Dad is still playing whack-a-mole with the loan sharks. She’s the one who got Barry into a rehab facility. He’s out of our hair for ninety days, minimum, but if she has her way, he might be there a couple extra months.

Natalie swears he never harmed her, didn’t touch her if he didn’t have to, but the minute that bastard gets out, we’re going to have a conversation. Dad got the kidnapping charges walked back to false imprisonment by somehow persuading the judge that even though Barry had a gun in his possession, he never intended to use it on Natalie, that he only carried it as self-protection against the guys who were coming after him for money. Who knows, it might even be true.

Finn and Natalie have been nearly permanent fixtures at my apartment since the whole thing. She’s none the worse for wear, but she thinks we don’t realize it took about a dozen trips in the car before she stopped looking sick and anxious about sitting in the back seat.

As for Finn… well, it’s a good thing Barry’s getting treatment, locked up safe with his doctors and his court orders.

Music drifts from the kitchen as I let myself in. Cat barely raises his head to look at me, perched on the back of the sofa where he tends to sleep most afternoons these days.

“Did they boot you off the table again?” I ask him, rubbing a knuckle under his chin. Soft laughter wafts in over the music.

The kitchen is a mess, but all I see is Natalie and Finn dancing to some old song on the speaker. She’s wearing an apron, her hair all twisted up on her head. There are pots of different things simmering on the stove. Finn’s twirling her around the kitchen. The steps are inexpert, but my heart fills to the brim at the sight of them.

There was a time not so very long ago when I thought I liked my quiet life, my solitude.

“Nic!”

Natalie’s eyes are glowing, her cheeks flushed. She dances away from Finn to come kiss my cheek but darts back to stir something on the stove before I can get my arms around her. Instead, Finn takes my hand, tugging me into his arms.

“Dancing in the kitchen?” I ask, quick-witted as ever. Watching them, coming home to them like this… this is joy. So much I can barely speak.

“Why not?” says Finn, spinning us and dipping me back over his arm.

“Do you want kids?”

Finn blinks. “What, right now?”

He brings us back upright. I could smack myself for ruining the moment, but the words are out. Natalie is gaping at me, the wooden spoon in her hand forgotten.

“I just meant, we’ve never talked about it.”

Finn looks at me for a solid minute before nodding like he’s come to some kind of conclusion while we are standing here with me being an idiot.

“Yeah. I really do,” he says soberly. “Do you?”

“I—” Oh my God. “Natalie?”

She clears her throat. “I’ve always wanted kids.”

“Kids, plural?”

“I’m an only child,” she says. “I always wanted siblings. And I’ve always loved the idea of having a big family of my own.”

“Define ‘big.’”

She colors prettily.

“Four?” guesses Finn. Her blush deepens. “More than four?”

“Nic didn’t answer the question,” she says. “Ask him.”

Finn looks at me, eyebrows up.

“My family is completely screwed up.”

“That’s your family, not you.”

“My brother’s an addict.”

“Still not you. And he’s getting treatment.”

“My parents?—”

“Are human,” says Finn. “Mine were, too.”

Natalie takes his hand.

“I’m not playing the orphan card,” says Finn.

“Liar,” I say.

“Not this time. I’m saying mine made mistakes, too. They were human, same as every other parent on the planet. Your mom and dad are not the only ones who screw up.”

“I think what Finn is trying to say,” says Natalie softly, “is that if you want kids, you’re in good company.”

“We might have to negotiate on four, though,” says Finn, head to one side, looking for all the world like he’s trying to do the math. “We’d be outnumbered.”

“Most families only have two parents,” says Natalie. “Plenty of them get outnumbered. Why not us?”

“You realize how crazy this sounds,” I say. My voice seems far away. “Three of us together, raising children.”

“Crazy as falling in love with your boss?” asks Natalie.

“Crazy as falling in love with two people at the same time?” says Finn. “Oh, and one of them is a dude, and you’ve only ever been into women before? Crazy as that?”

It is crazy. All of it.

“Tell you what, maybe you’re right. Maybe it is crazy.” Finn links our hands together, all three of us. “But I wouldn’t bet against us.”